John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak today. I congratulate Senator Flynn not only on her contribution to the report but on her contribution to the Seanad.

In no particular order, I was struck by a number of things. I served as a county councillor on South Dublin County Council along with Deputies Ward and Ó Broin, although I was there before either of them. As such I was very fortunate to work under one of the most exemplary public servants on this issue and other issues, the late Joe Horan, who was chief executive of that council and transformed it in so many ways. The reason I think of him was that one of the points raised here was about public bodies doing more in regard to the employment of Travellers. The late Mr. Horan led the way on that. It was not just in respect of Travellers but those with disabilities also. He always did more than was required of him under law as a chief executive in employing percentages of both in the council. They were visible and worked in County Hall in Tallaght. There is a beautiful park, Seán Keating Garden, adjacent to Rathfarnham Castle commemorating the life of this artist who was quite active in painting on behalf of the State and left an artistic legacy behind him, particularly in places like Ballyroan church and in other areas. All of the masonry work carried out in Seán Keating Garden, which I would invite anybody who is passing Rathfarnham Castle to visit, was carried out by members of the Traveller community who were employed by South Dublin County Council. South Dublin County Council is unique in that regard.

There are, to the best of my knowledge, no Travellers employed in the Houses of the Oireachtas but I could be wrong. One could go far to find Travellers employed in any Government Department. If Joe Horan could do it in South Dublin County Council, there is no reason every chief executive of every local authority in this country could not do it. That is a challenge and something I will sign up to. It is one of the points that has been made.

On living conditions, there is a particular Traveller accommodation in my constituency which I visited just before the Covid-19 pandemic. It has one of the best views of Dublin and is on the foothills of the Dublin Mountains. There are ten homes there but only five of them were occupied at the time that I visited for reasons beyond my understanding. The people who live in that accommodation are denied that view of Dublin Bay, Dublin city, the Pigeon House and all of the other sites one can see because of the fortress wall built around it. For the ten or 15 minutes I was there, I must say that I felt quite claustrophobic. I asked our director of housing in South Dublin County Council, another very good man, would he not consider creating some kind of visual gaps in this wall so that when people walk out of the front door in the morning, they are not just looking at masonry but have a wider view to take in.

Many people are going to dwell on particular points in the report but I just want to make a point about different local authorities carrying out and fulfilling their responsibilities. In South Dublin County Council, since I was elected in 1999, all of the councillors - it was a 26 member body then - tended to stick together and support each other when it came to the provision of Traveller accommodation and as a result there was a good and balanced spread of Traveller accommodation in each and every electoral ward in the county. We tended to spend the budget that was given to us. That was not and is not the same in adjacent counties. One of the scandals that was referred to earlier, but obviously it is changing, is of local authorities not spending the allocated amount they given for Traveller accommodation.

One of the things I would like noted is that a local authority cannot do this by itself but it can assist settled residential communities by providing a framework and structure for both of these communities to meet because they never meet and yet their children meet and play together in school and do all of the things children do in school. The adult communities, however, never meet and there is a real fear, bias and stereotyping that prevents them from meeting. It is only through meeting and communicating that those stereotypes and biases will be broken down.

I remember bringing this to a service we have in south Dublin, South Dublin County Mediation Service, as a particular issue had arisen, and the service was very enthusiastic about playing a particular role and getting involved in this.

I see Deputy Leddin has arrived and I was speaking as though all of the time was mine. My apologies to my colleague for that. There are things I wanted to say around the mental health piece and so on but the point I wish to finish on is the Joe Horan piece. If we had more chief executives in charge of county councils like the late Joe Horan, Travellers would be in a much better position as would society.

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